Freezing Humans

Recently I read that a lot of people want their bodies frozen so that they can be revived in the future to see how it turned out. Do we have the technology to freeze a person or an animal alive today that can be thawed back to life?

I have heard this technology a few years ago, but my memory failed me. I couldn't remember the source, but the technology had been developed and a few scientists and some cancer patients demanded to be frosen until a day which they can be treated. (Since this is what I've heard long time ago, the source could be false)

Just out of curiosity, when we freeze our body, do we also freeze our mind, i.e. our concious? What if we don't, wouldn't it be a suffering to live under that condition?

technology since once our body freezes ice crystals tear everything like small knifes.
altough scientists managed to freeze (a fly,a toad,a worm a fish ,i don't really remember what since i saw it on a science show)
it turns out that it has a certain enzime in its body that acts like an anti freeze fluid.(yhe i think i remember now it was a toad but not sure).

I have confirmed my source, it was from a discussion made by my English teacher during an English lesson. I wonder the accuracy of his source...

technology since once our body freezes ice crystals tear everything like small knifes.

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Is there a way to only crystalise the outer layer of our skin and keep our bofy hydrated, but just keep our body at a low temperature that matabolism virtally stops? Thus we can create a state where we age slowly?

Bacterias thrive even in minus 4 degree celsius. So keeping body at 1 degree C wont do. The solution is some type of antifreeze that permeats all the cells and protects it at say minus 50 C. OR remove the water from the body and replace it with a polymer which is difficult to do.

The solution is some type of antifreeze that permeats all the cells and protects it at say minus 50 C.

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This seems to me to be really hard to achieve. Just say, there's this tech. already to protect our cells, does this mean the slowing of motabolism, if not, doesn't this seem to be pointless, as we will age and die just like before?

I think, the metabolish slows down and stops at or below certain temperature. I was watching the demolition man directors narration. They took some of the facts and made a fiction out of it. This was one of those issues.

Now this goes back a couple years and all the details have slipped from my mind but I distinctly remember a nature program which showed a type of cricket which lived in an environment with wildly fluctuating temperature changes. During the day it was reasonably warm but at night the temp. dropped to freezing or below and this cricket would hunker down in its tunnel and wait out the night. They had a camera in the tunnel which showed the cricket literally freezing solid, ice crystals formed etc. and then when the sun came up it thawed out and went about it's crickety business.
I figure if we can study how it does this maybe revivification isn't that far off.

P.S. For a good fictional story about Cryology (and the social ramifications) check out The Last Immortal. (I forget the auth.)

I happened to see a grasshopper frozen a few years ago in winter. But I still think that motabolism won't stop completely, but only slows down to a state where we cannot detect easily without precise intruments. Therefore, we will still age, but only slower.

A new life in the physical realm . That is, if the soul finds it necessary. Now, the memory of the previous existense is not lost. It just takes a little effort to wake it up. And then you also have the priviledge to experience the future as a child too, which you can´t if you freeze yourself as an adult.

and here we were having a nice discussion about freezing each other. Anyhow let's just stick to the physical realm, in our "present incarnations" and extending the potential overall time in the Universe. If I remember correctly the main problem is freezer burn, when the h2o in the body cools it expands which bursts the cell walls or something like that.
Even if we solve thee purely physical, ignore the purely spiritual, we still have yet to state with any certainty the final composition of the mental faculties.
Can the human conciousness survive being frozen? Will the neurons actually be able to be resuscitated in the future? What do you think?

[Beb's] Your reincarnation huballo don't hold water in our discussion. If we never venture into Cryonics then human stasis will never be a factor of consideration for interstellar flight and we'll never get off this silly little rock.

An antifreeze protein produced by Antarctic fish has been synthesised in a more robust form by US researchers. The breakthrough will allow much larger amounts of the proteins to be produced for uses as diverse as storing human tissue, making concrete frost resistant, and preventing frozen food going mushy.

The class of proteins - known as antifreeze glycoproteins (AFGPs) - have been widely studied. Without them, ice crystals would form in the fishes' blood and tissues, rupturing the delicate membranes and internal structures of cells. However these fish, cod and notothenioids, have been the only source of AFGPs until now.

"Supply is a major problem," says Ann Oliver, an AFGP researcher at University of California, Davis, "because obtaining the protein from fish is an extremely expensive process."

The new work, by Robert Ben and his colleagues at the State University of New York, Binghamton, should change that. The new technique, "allows the routine production of more chemically and biologically stable AFGP analogues in fairly sizeable quantities," says Ben.

So how would one go about introducing a foriegn protien into a human subject with constructive results. The effect is going to have to be 90% inclusive on a cellular (or is it molecular) level. And do these substances (AFGP's and synth AF) maintain the neural environ at such °'s?

as i recall (having seen that same grasshopper show), the grasshopper's blood actually had a natural antifreeze in it...and thats what allowed it to be frozen....and then thawed......without bursting all of its cells.